Yves Rocher is a brand I am rather fond of. I have at least four full bottles* and have yet to try one I disliked. I was kindly sent a bottle of Quelques Notes D’Amour by Yves Rocher and I thank them warmly for their generosity. I am always happy to receive perfume to review, on the proviso that I may not like it and I may say so! However, I will always be honest and well mannered.

Here goes then: At first I did not like Quelques Notes D’Amour but after three days of wearing it in day time and even overnight in bed (a very good test of a scent) it has won me over.

When I first smelled it on day one, I thought it was fairly generic and it went a bit cardboard-y/Crayola crayons on me after around half an hour. However, the bottle was so pretty and the reviews so positive on Fragrantica that I wondered if I was missing something so tried again.

This time round I really started to respect the kind of rose scent this is. The rose is not a watercolour rose, as it is in the rather lovely Comme Une Evidence, but more of a sophisticated, complex, woody rose. In fact the first phase is pink pepper, which may have put me off at first. Pink pepper is a red berry that is often used in fruity florals, and in my opinion, has been used with too heavy a hand of late. In Quelques Notes D’Amour its just the warm up act because the middle phase becomes a thick, rich woody Damascene rose. It’s definitely an Autumn/Winter rose rather than a light one for summer and would also serve you well as an evening fragrance.

The base note is long and rich and even a little spiky with patchouli and Guaiac wood (used so well in Hilary Duff With Love). There’s warm benzoin and green cedar too, but I can’t help thinking that the pink pepper and the rose never really went away.

Quelques Notes D’Amour comes in a beautiful bottle and is, in my opinion, not for teens -and hooray for that! Those young people get wayyyy too many new launches aimed at them. We “over 27s” ( Okay I’m 44) like being catered for and for that alone I am giving this a thumbs up. For being a rich, woody rose that repelled me then changed my mind and reeled me in, I give this another thumbs up. If I had a third thumb, I would give yet another thumbs up because Yves Rocher have a purse spray on offer, which is a great way of trying a fragrance before buying a full bottle. I have a thing for purse sprays, so this pleased me no end.

Yves Rocher, keep up the sterling work. As you were.

fragrantica

Stockists: You can buy Quelques Notes D’Amour from the UK Yves Rocher website. To my chums in the USA and Canada- sadly this is not yet available over on your patch, but I can heartily recommend Moment de Bonheur, Comme Une Evidence and So Elixir, all of which are on the Yves Rocher USA site.

* The Yves Rocher scents I own are; Comme Une Evidence, Cléa, Yria, and Yves Rocher Fraicheur Vegetale Verveine. I also recommend the lovely So Elixir. You can find reviews of them all on this blog.